Op-ed: Alberta’s budget: The good, the bad, and the elephant in the room

This op-ed was originally published on Ricochet - English on March 29, 2017

The Alberta government recently released its 2016-17 budget to lay out its plan for the new fiscal year. The budget is relatively good news for public services, given the continuing impact of the global price of oil and the province’s anemic tax system on government revenues. However, the budget contains no changes that raise new money to begin addressing Alberta’s severe revenue shortfall. The shortage of revenue remains the elephant in the room that none of the major parties seem prepared to address.